Tamaqua couple spared from viral outbreak cruise

Thomas Layer / associated Press
The Royal Caribbean International's Explorer of the Seas is docked at Charlotte Amalie Harbor in St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands on Sunday.

Tom Messerschmidt called his recent trip on the Explorer of the Seas a "disaster from the get-go."

He wasn't among the hundreds of passengers to contract a gastrointestinal virus that ultimately led to Royal Caribbean cutting the 10-day cruise short, but his trip wasn't exactly a dream vacation.

Tom and his wife, Donna, of South Tamaqua, were on land Wednesday after the ship docked at its Bayonne, N.J., port.

"I'm so happy to be back even though it's so cold," Donna said.

The couple spent Thursday morning washing clothing they took on the trip. They figured it might banish any residual viruses.

According to Tom, it was only hours into the cruise when passengers learned that 10 people had an intestinal virus. Health investigators suspect the highly contagious norovirus, but tests won't confirm that for a few more days.

By the third day, passengers were told that 100 people had taken ill - a number that Tom believes was underinflated. Other passengers told national news outlets similar stories, saying that they believed around 1,000 people on board were sick. Estimates put the sick at 700 passengers and crew members, making it one of the largest outbreaks on a cruise ship in more than 20 years, according to information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Guests with vomiting and diarrhea were told to stay in their rooms, Tom said. Those who were well were given bottles of hand sanitizer and told to wash their hands frequently.

Ship rules changed, too. Passengers were no longer permitted to serve themselves at buffets; instead, crew members wearing masks and gloves dished out meals. Everywhere were reminders that people were ill, Tom said.

"They were always wiping down stuff. You would be having breakfast and they would be wiping down the railing right next to where you were sitting. You would smell a disinfectant, a bleach smell," he said. And while he was glad to see the effort, he said, "It just really changed the cruise."

"Plus you would walk around, trying not to touch the rails on a ship that is swaying back and forth. I found myself putting the Purell (hand sanitizer) up my forearms. You do what you have to do."

Several public areas were also closed down as a precaution - except for the ship's casino, where Tom guessed germs could easily spread via gaming chips and slot machine controls.

"Of course, that stayed open. It is all about the almighty dollar," he guessed.

The ship made ports of call in Puerto Rico and St. Thomas, but turned around before scheduled stops in St. Maarten and Haiti.

Cruise representatives scheduled a meeting with passengers. At times, Tom said, the meeting became heated.

"It got nasty," he said.

Passengers initially were told they would receive $400 back - regardless of what they paid for the trip. A few days later, he said, the offer included the $400, plus half of their fare back and a voucher for half off a future cruise of their choice. The offer didn't stand for long; in the end, the cruise line agreed to paying half of passengers' fares, but pulled the $400 and made the future cruise voucher very restrictive.

"They are great at playing the game. First, they gave us crap. Then they gave us the world," Tom said. "And then they took the world away piece by piece. There is nothing we can do about it."

The Messerschmidts, who have been on cruises before, were thankful that neither of them became extremely ill with the gastrointestinal virus. Donna said she was sick with a "touch of" a stomach flu-like virus for a little more than a day. When she started to feel better, she said, the virus outbreak was always in the back of her mind.

"You were always afraid that you were standing next to someone who has it. Or sharing an elevator with people who have it," she said. "You wonder, do you have it - or will you catch it?"

Tom said that he contracted a severe cough and Donna has been complaining of a scratchy throat. He wonders if they became sick on the first day, when boarding was pushed back by a few hours.

"Once we went through customs, showed our identifications and stuff, they basically put us in what looked like an airport hangar. It had no heat. People were saying that it was 5 degrees outside, with the windchill," he said.

He also questions whether a rumor he heard onboard was true - that about 70 people were sick on the preceding Explorer of the Seas cruise.

"People were saying that they did a turnaround and went on with our cruise," he said of the rumor. "That may have been why we had to wait to board."

Donna, who retired a few days before departure, said she and Tom made the best of the time they had.

"What we did do, the things that were fun were a lot of fun," she said.

"For as bad as this trip was, it could've been a lot worse," Tom agreed.

The ship was sanitized and is set to sail today on a nine-day trip to the Caribbean.

jwhalen@standardspeaker.com, 570-455-3636

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